Thanksgivikkah

There are a lot pictures on this post so I'll keep the talk to a minimum.  First things first, in the ongoing saga of our first year of kindergarten things are beginning to look up. I asked Jacob if he liked school last week and he said yes. So we'll just run with that. Here's his kindergarten school picture. I'm just amazed that whoever took the picture managed to pry Jacob's name tag off him and still get him to smile since the child wore that thing every day for the first month or so of school. That's what makes them professionals I guess.

On to Thanksgivikkah. We spent the Thanksgiving/Hanukkah holiday up in New York with this giant crowd, including NINE children 5 and under.  

Stephanie and Gregory and their twins Finley and Grant.

  

 The Kids Table

 

 

 

Sleepover with Heath. This was at about 11pm when they were all FINALLY asleep!

  Catching the LIRR for our annual trip to the NYC.

Look at me, look at me...

Oops.

 This year, instead of toy stores and Rockefeller Plaza, we hit the Natural History Museum and Central Park. We never made it to the playground I planned to visit because this giant rock formation was in our way.  It is a fact that any rock formations must be climbed.  

 I had other hopes and dreams for lunch, but this is what we had instead.

 On our way from the NYC to the LI on the LIRR.

 We were all tired after this exciting adventure but unfortunately no one was actually asleep.

And then...we celebrated just Hanukkah with the cousins!!!! 

The aftermath of these pictures were the cause of many tears ("pyramids" do fall). It was worth it though, right Dave/Wendy & Jaime/Jared? Cause these are such  quality shots?  

Oh well.

 

This is as good as it gets!

It's My Birthday Too,Yeah

I love my birthday month. This year my birthday fell on a Monday. On Mondays both boys are in school  - a priceless gift (even though of course, I love those boys, I LOVE them! but when it's my birthday they really don't appreciate that it's my birthday all day, they might give me a good 10 minutes of birthday respect but actually that's optimistic, and it's not even all at once.  It's 10 one minute increments... nope, not even.  It's more like twenty 30 second increments.  And all twenty of them are used up before 8:25 am when we have to leave for school which is never pretty.)  BUT, that might give you the impression that my birthday wasn't fabulous, and it was.

First I woke up to this, which included breakfast in bed (not shown, sorry Mike):

 

Don't be fooled, we always have at least one blown up balloon around this house just because.
Then I spent three hours in quiet solitude.

Then later we picked out fancy outfits to wear to a fancy dinner out together, all four of us (someone learned a little about Veterans Day in kindergarten in case you can't tell).

Jacob takes fancy outfits seriously.
And then it was November 12th. Sigh.
But it was okay because it was 11/12/13 and that doesn't happen every day.

October Recap

Whoops, it's already November.  This was a fast October with trips (already documented) school (still adjusting - one kid loves it, one kid's still not so sure), apple picking with Owen. running the Army 10 Miler with Jean and without properly training (painful!), Jacob learning to ride a two-wheeler, and of course HALLOWEEN! Owen was steadfast in his decision to be Jake from the Neverland Pirates. Jacob changed his mind at the last minute from being a regular old ninja to being the obscure superhero...Falcon. I actually MADE his costume the night before Halloween!  So let's get to it ... in reverse chronological order.

Jake and Falcon

Jacob's kindergarten class - Halloween parade and party

Technical difficulties prevented me from uploading video from his first time riding the bike, but this video is from a week later, the second time he rode it.  Yay Jacob!

Doing our best to hide the pain.  ATM 2013!

 

Another year of completely underestimating how many apples fill a third of a bushel basket.  Hello apple pie, apple crisp, applesauce, etc.

Reunions

I've had a few reunions in recent weeks.

The C-SPAN Bus program is celebrating it's 20th anniversary this year and I was lucky enough to be a part of it for 11(!) of those years. They hosted a reunion and many current and past bus crew members attended. Lots of great memories.

Rachel exceeded all my expectations in helping to put together a great party. It was so fun to catch up with everyone!

Then, despite hurricane threats and government shutdowns, the stars aligned and I was able to meet up for a last minute trip with my buddy, old pal Lisa in Puerto Rico for a long weekend.

 

I predict I'll be referring back to these photos all winter.

Honeymoon's Over

Well, four weeks in to kindergarten and the honeymoon is officially over.
First two weeks, great.  Second two weeks - ugh! Hoping it's only a matter of time before Jacob decides to like it but for now most mornings involve long talks about courage, "kid law", and waving my arm off from the playground while he makes his long trek to the classroom door.

So, that's that.  But on the bright side both boys got to go to Target recently and choose presents for their birthdays (I know, I was very tardy in getting Owen to pick something), thanks to Great Aunt Nancy. This was such a fun experiment to me.  I told both boys they had a certain amount to spend and they could choose from costumes, clothes or toys.  Each did such a good job of choosing one thing over another, and determining how much they had left to spend and really thinking all their choices through. Owen found his present almost immediately and stacked it up against about a million other toys he encountered during the hour long (or maybe two hour long) visit to the story, but in the end his first choice won out.  Thanks for a fun distraction from the depths of despair of kindergarten Great Aunt Nancy!

Here is their bounty.

Owen's 1st Day of School and Dreams Do Come True

After patiently waiting and watching Jacob leave every morning last week to go to kindergarten, Owen FINALLY started school.  Here he is on his first day of his three day 3-year-old preschool class.  

There is a very good possibility he was wearing this exact outfit for his first day last year. I'm going to go back and look for myself.  Just a guess, but this looks very familiar.

In other news, the boys were allowed to get ice-cream from the ice-cream truck today for the first time ever and here's how it went down:

 We heard it one street over, but will it ever get here or did it decide to skip our street?  The suspense.

 The ice-cream truck dance.

 Finally!  Decisions Decisions.

Victory!  Ice-cream for dinner tonight!

Which Trumps Which?

Birthday or first day of K, when both land on the same day?

Well, Jacob is all packed up and ready for kindergarten, with a little help from Owen...

Ba-dum-bump.

But seriously, we woke up this morning to greet a FIVE-YEAR-OLD for his first day of kindergarten. Last night he was just four, but today he woke up older and after his first full day of elementary school, wiser.  I'm assuming.  Though he didn't actually share much of what he learned today, except that because he's five now he's allowed to chew gum which is something he didn't learn in school, in fact I taught him that and therefore it doesn't count except that it's the ONLY thing he thinks about anymore. Just ask Nana who tried to talk to him about his day and send him birthday wishes but was instead interrupted with "um, excuse me, I can chew gum now" and then handed me the phone. So, all that to say, even before he got to chew his first stick of gum, today was a great success.  He came out of class smiling, said Kindergarten was awesome and that he had "gone into it thinking he was going to have to be quiet all the time but really it was very noisy!"  I'm just happy he seems to want to go back tomorrow.  

 Beginning of the day.

 End of the day.

And then, on to celebrating the big F-I-V-E.